The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to a system and a method for monitoring hygiene compliance and/or status and, more particularly, but not exclusively, to a system and a method for monitoring personal hygiene compliance and/or status of users.
In various situations and environments, it is considered desirable to remind and/or to encourage people to perform personal hygiene tasks, such as washing their hands. Typical environments would include hospitals, care homes and hospices, where caregiver, such as nurses, doctors and therapists should wash their hands regularly, in particular when moving between treating different patients. Other environments where regular hand washing is required could include catering environments where food items are processed or at food processing facilities. It is necessary for people in such environments to take responsibility for their personal hygiene.
During the last years various devices have been developed in an attempt to improve the personal hygiene level of care takers and workers. This devices are designed to detects whether the user washes her hands or not and to output a sanitary signaling accordingly.
For example U.S. Pat. No. 5,952,924, filed on Dec. 4, 1997, describes a system for encouraging workers who work in a hygienically controlled area to wash their hands before exiting an associated sanitation area. Broadly, the present invention comprises a housing located in the sanitation area for receiving at least a portion of the hands of the worker. A detector is operatively associated with the housing. The detector detects whether or not the hands of the worker have recently been washed in response to the insertion of the hands of the worker into the housing. A communication media is also operatively associated with the detector for outputting one of a sanitary signaling media in response to the detection that the hands of the worker have been washed and an unsanitary signaling media in response to the detection that the hands of the workers have not been washed.
Another example is described in UK Patent Application No. GB 2417811A, filed on Aug. 12, 2005, that discloses hand washing detector device, suitable to be fitted to a person possibly on the hand or wrist, comprises a sensor for sensing a hand washing event and a timing module responsive to the sensor. The device may also include an alarm system wherein the timing module activates the alarm system when a first predetermined time limit is exceeded between hand washing events. The alarm may be audible, vibratory and/or visual and the sensor may detect the presence of water or any other chemical present during hand washing. The device may help in infection control by monitoring hand washing and reminding people to wash their hands regularly.
In addition, systems and methods for monitoring hygiene standards compliance in a certain environment have also been developed. For example, International Application No. PCT/EP2006/062895, filed on Jun. 2, 2006 describes a system and a method of monitoring hygiene standards compliance in a medical facility in which there is provided a surveillance network having a monitoring unit and a plurality of network units. There may additionally be provided a plurality of fixed network units. The monitoring unit, mobile network units and fixed network units are connected by way of a wireless personal area network (WPAN), in this case a ZigBee network. Identification signals are sent from the mobiles network units to the monitoring unit and the monitoring unit stores the identification signals in memory and generates a hygiene standards compliance profile for an individual associated with a particular mobile network unit. The hygiene compliance profile may provide information relating to the number of times that a particular individual washed their hands to information regarding the patients that that individual came into contact with over the course of a shift. Reports on the behavior of individuals or groups of individuals may be generated.
Another example is described in International Patent Application Pub. No. WO2010/026581, filed on Sep. 3, 2009, that describes a method for analyzing hygiene habits of a user. The method comprises attaching a personal hygiene monitor to the user, using the attached personal hygiene monitor for detecting a plurality of personal hygiene events related to the user, logging the plurality of personal hygiene events to allow configuring a user hygiene profile of the user, and estimating a hygiene level of one or more hygiene habits of the user according to the user hygiene profile.